


Anything

by twistedchick



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-17
Updated: 2009-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-03 04:29:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedchick/pseuds/twistedchick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>William Ellison talks about Jim's childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anything

You know, Jimmy was never an easy child, not from the day he was born. Actually, not even before that.

They always say the oldest child is the hardest to raise, and Jimmy was no exception. From the start he cried all the time. He wasn't a large baby; today, from what I understand, they'd consider him a 'low-birth-weight' child and probably give him special food or something. But that's how he managed to be born at all, by being small; Gracie had a tumor at the same time, and purposely keeping him small was the only way to keep his head from being crushed before he was born. Gracie wasn't allowed to gain more than two pounds between doctor's visits, sometimes not even that much. But we managed, and Jimmy was born healthy, if small. At least he ate well, and gained enough weight early on to put him back on the charts where he was supposed to be...

What does that pitcher think he's doing, out there? Is he shaking off the catcher's signals again? Won't do him a bit of good.

... oh, about Jimmy ... Gracie had a hard time taking care of him. The surgery for her tumor, a few months after the birth, made her too weak even to pick him up. That's when I hired Sally to come in and help out. She was good with Jimmy and with Gracie, taking care of them both, and Jimmy loved her. But you know, you could see his eyes going to Gracie at times, wondering why she wasn't holding him. I did what I could, of course, after I got home from work, but that late at night he was usually asleep. But I learned to change a diaper and fix his formula and feed him on the weekends so they could both have a break It took a while, but when Gracie healed and started to be able to take care of him more, he fussed less, and that helped everyone get more sleep....

That was no strike! That was a ball!

... Everything itched for him. Everything. When he was old enough to walk, he cried if he had to walk on the soft mown grass; later on, he said it felt like little spikes and knives underfoot. His jeans were too rough, his socks made his feet sore. Nothing ever worked right the first time with that child, and it wasn't easy on any of us...

Oh, good hit over there. C'mon, steal that base -- oh, well. Nice try.

... When Gracie was about to have Stevie, I asked Sally to come and stay with us instead of just coming in during the day. Sally took over most of the housekeeping as well as taking care of Jimmy. Gracie just wasn't well enough a lot of the time to play with such an active child, but she loved to have him curl up next to her on her bed while she read him stories. I used to almost feel jealous of the good times they had there, as she read him 'Horton Hears a Who' or 'The Little Engine That Could,' or any of the other children's books in the house. She'd have him 'talk' to the baby, playing pattycake on her stomach, and it was so cute. I wish now that I'd taken more pictures of that time.

But, you know, the one thing that went right with Jimmy from the first was having Steven for a little brother. He adored Stevie, helped Gracie take care of him. It was cute as anything, the way he'd look out for the kid, and the way Stevie would follow Jimmy around the house, and later to school and to baseball games and everywhere else. It made me wish I'd had a brother when I was growing up, instead of two sisters who were years older and didn't want me tagging along ...

Good tag! Nice double-play there.

... You're right, divorce isn't easy, especially when there are children involved. After Stevie's birth Gracie said, no more. She said it hurt too much -- not just having Stevie, but all of it, any time I touched her. I sent her to doctors, and they didn't find anything, but it was obvious that she was uncomfortable. Even so, she was my wife. I could've just found some girl in town, if that was all that mattered, but I had other things to consider. I had my boys -- and I loved Gracie.

I did everything I could think of to do, but it wasn't enough. She moved out, went on her own. Surprised me when she did it; she'd never lived alone in her life. But she did it, and disappeared from my life. I can't tell you how much that hurt. But you know about that, don't you? You've been there too, with your boy. Is that him over there, on third base? Yes, I can see the resemblance.

Come on, get home, run, run ... good!

... When the divorce came through I didn't expect how it cut me apart. I'd see Jimmy looking up at me with those big blue eyes, but they'd be her eyes, not his; I know I was harder on him than I had to be, and it wasn't easy to apologize.

How do you tell a child that his mother left because she couldn't stand to have you touch her? Just hearing her name scalded me; I told the boys never to speak of her again. They never did. When I think back on that, it was probably the wrong thing to do, but I didn't think of it at the time. It was all I could do to keep going, get to work, get home, be a father as best I could, and not drop all the balls. It wasn't any easier then than it is now, I think....

Slide, slide, slide ... safe!

... Stevie didn't have the same sensitivities that Jimmy'd had, as a child. He'd eat anything, wear anything, run barefoot across the grass giggling. Jimmy would chase after him to make sure he wouldn't fall into the swimming pool, and then Stevie would be chasing after Jimmy all around the yard. When they were a little older, both had swimming lessons but it seemed as if Jimmy was the one teaching Stevie how to swim, looking out for him in the water, and not the instructor. Whatever Jimmy did, Stevie tried to do. If Jimmy pretended he was Batman, Stevie was Robin, racing around the yard in cute little capes that Sally found for them at a costume shop. Jimmy started to build himself a tree fort when he was seven or eight, without any help from me, but the first thing he did after it was safely up in the English oak behind the house was to make sure Stevie could climb up the ladder to be in it with him. I couldn't count how often I'd look out of my study and see them playing up there.

But as time went on I worried about my boys. The world I knew was dog-eat-dog, and they would have been gobbled up and spit out in it. They were too trusting, expected the whole world would be as good to them as they were to each other. I couldn't let them go out into the world expecting that; I had to toughen them up for the real world. So I got them to compete against each other, made them work hard for what they got. It was good for them, good experience. I'm sure neither of them would have gotten to where he is today without it....

Bunt!

...Jimmy never understood, though. He always took it all so seriously, and he took it the wrong way. He never realized what I was trying to do, or that toughening him up for the real world was because I didn't want him hurt. No matter what I wanted for him, he went the other way to spite me. He was captain of the Cascade High School football squad, the team that held the regional title for two years, and also the class salutatorian with acceptances from Duke, Yale, Harvard and Princeton -- now, how often do you get anyone on a football team to do his homework, let alone become salutatorian? The school had to calculate it out to hundredths of a point to see if he was coming in first or second.

And then he turned all of it down to enlist in the Army. I never could figure out why. It couldn't have been about that car thing, could it? Stevie said something like that a while back, but it didn't seem like anything that big. Besides, if he'd said anything about wanting to go into the Army, I could've pulled strings with the Senator and gotten him into one of the military academies, West Point or Annapolis, but he never said a word. Instead, there he was taking orders from some beefy sergeant like every other kid in the place.

Oh, he got his degrees eventually, in night school while he was in the military and afterward, a bachelor's in military science and a master's in criminology -- but why? With his mind and his ability, Jimmy could be anything in the world. He could accomplish anything.

What? No, my draft number was too high. I was never called up, and I was too young for World War II ...

He's a really good pitcher, isn't he? Usually it's the taller ones who have the moves.

...He didn't write me, and I didn't know how to contact him. I heard through the grapevine that he'd gone into the Rangers -- one of the other kids from his class did the same thing and ran into him, and the word got back through his family -- and I felt a bit better. At least, if he had to be in the military, he was in an elite group, one of the best. He wasn't something ordinary.

Then he disappeared, when that damned chopper crashed. I was notified when that happened. Two Rangers in full uniform came to the house to see me, very polite, as kind as they could manage to be considering they didn't answer a damn one of my questions. I asked the Senator to find out more, pull a few strings, to at least get Jimmy's body shipped home, but nothing came of it. I even wrote to the President for help, but got nowhere. It was as if Jimmy didn't exist any more. Nobody would talk about him.

Sally fell apart. She said it comforted her to keep working, to see Jimmy's things in his room, but she drifted around the house, crying. I couldn't take it. I spent more time at the office when I could, with the door shut, trying to find some one of my connections who could do something, maybe a financier or an importer or someone who knew someone else who might be able to find out what was really happening with my Jimmy.

He was still my Jimmy, even if I hadn't seen him for years. He'll always be my Jimmy, just as your boy will always be yours, no matter what.

Double play! Well done!

...I had to accept that I'd never see my boy again, and it was a terrible thing. I put all my attention on Stevie, but he was too much like his big brother. Stevie came to my office and told me he didn't want to learn the family business. Instead, he wanted to take the job he'd been offered at the racetrack. I told him that was stupid, and he'd be better off with me -- and I really thought that, I wasn't just trying to push him any more. I thought he'd be better off in the kind of structure we have at Ellison Industries, running one of the subsidiaries and training to succeed me, but he stared me down and told me that I'd been wrong about him all along. When I asked him what he meant by that, he said I didn't know him well enough to ask the question, and walked out.

You know, Stevie's made a good job of the racetrack. Now, he's managing two racetracks for the corporation that owns them, and may be put in charge of another before long. I'm very proud of what he's accomplished, turning those businesses around; they were in bad straits before he took over their finances....

Home run! Oh, that one's out of the ballfield. Hope they brought more baseballs along; what's that, the third homer in this game?

What? Oh yes, I'd like another beer. Here, I'll open this one for you. How's your arm doing? Better? Good.

... I've kept a scrapbook for each of the boys all along, pasting in the notices of their accomplishments. The day I pasted in the 'missing in action' notice I'd been sent by the Army, I put Jimmy's notebook away, I thought forever.

Then, after all that time, they found Jimmy in Peru, doing his job all along, guarding some pass in the mountains with the help of the natives. When I saw his face on that magazine cover, he looked too much like my uncle Robert, who fought at Anzio and came back with a case of the shakes that he never lost. I pasted that in his scrapbook, but when the glue was dry I put the scrapbook back in the bookcase instead of in the closet, and dared to hope I might see my boy again.

But when Jimmy came back, he returned to Cascade, not to me.

I did see him then, but only from a distance. I stood off at the far side of the crowd when he graduated from the police academy and was sworn in as an officer; were you there, then? I watched from the street when he and his wife came out of the church and drove off, laughing, toward their honeymoon, and wished him all the good times I'd had with Gracie and more. My wishes must not have had any power, though, as I saw the 'I will not assume any debts contracted by' notice in the want ads less than two years later, with their names in it, and knew that a divorce must be under way. I ached for my boy, but I ached alone; he wouldn't have appreciated any words from me, after all that time.

Did you know him then? Not that well? I'm not surprised. He's always kept a lot to himself.

Jimmy must have thrown himself into police work the way Steve threw himself into his racetrack business. Once he moved from Narcotics bureau into the Vice squad he dropped out of sight. I could have sworn I'd seen him out of the corner of my eye more than once, but I was never sure. I'd read the newspaper articles about cases where he might have been involved, his name was never mentioned. It was a bit unnerving. You're right, I probably wouldn't have wanted to know what he was doing all the time, but I worried all the same. Glad to know I wasn't the only one who was worried, though.

I was relieved when he went to the Major Crime bureau; it was much easier to keep track of him. You know, I pasted up so many newspaper clippings of his cases, every time his name was in the paper, that I started a new notebook just for them.

In the meantime, my business continued to grow and keep me busy. I considered remarrying, but decided not to, for a number of reasons; you can probably guess a few. I wasn't getting any younger, and I'm fairly set in my ways, but who isn't? I suggested to Steven that it was time he thought of getting married and giving me a grandchild. His response was, let me say, not entirely unexpected -- he informed me that he was a homosexual and might, perhaps, adopt a child if he and his partner decided to be parents, but he would not be getting married unless the state of Washington ratified the gay marriage rights bill. Well, let me tell you, I was startled, but not entirely shocked, though I'm sure he thought I was. Stevie has never known how much he resembled Gracie's older brother, and this was just one more resemblance. Stevie also suggested that I stop trying to arrange his life for him, which I found ridiculous. I've never tried to run his life; I've just made suggestions of things that would be good for him. That's what fathers do, isn't it?

Hey! That runner was safe! Get a new umpire over there!

... I watched Jimmy go on being a cop, getting awards, and, no offense, but I couldn't help thinking what a waste his life was. He could have been anything. He could have done anything, even with his disabilities. I hadn't forgotten that time when he found the body, when he swore he could hear and see things no normal kid could hear or see. It was the same disability my father had, the one that made him a recluse when my sisters and I were growing up, so that we couldn't make noise around him. That hearing problem kept my father out of the army during the War, and rightly so. He couldn't have managed on a ship, or in a foxhole; he received a military deferment for doing work vital to the war effort, and the military contracts built up the company and made it a success. When I saw that Jimmy had the same disability, I told him never to talk about it. I didn't want him to have problems with the kids at school. He must have done what I said; he had a lot of nice friends in high school, good boys, not the rowdy crowd, and a few pretty girls, too.

And then, one day, there he was at my door, doing official police business, with that long-haired kid dogging his steps. The kid stayed with me when I was hurt, later on, and took care of me until the ambulance came while Jimmy captured my attacker.

You think Jimmy's a good cop? I'm glad. I've thought that with all those awards, he's got to be about the best in the state, if not the west. He's always been good at whatever he wanted to do. He could do anything, Jimmy could.

A week after he captured that man who came after me, Jimmy came over for lunch. He'd gotten so big, taller than I was, broader, and he looked so much older than the last time I'd seen him that it made me feel my age and then some. He looked tired, but not as tired as he did on that magazine cover a few years earlier. But there was something different about him. It wasn't just that he didn't look uncertain, the way he did when he was a kid, but something else. It made me hope we might be able to talk to each other again, after all these years.

It didn't click with me until I saw how he watched the kid, Blair Sandburg, and how Blair watched him. They were friends, the way he and Stevie had been so long ago. I knew if I was going to have Jimmy back in my life in any real way I'd have to have Blair, too.

Well, my sons have always had good taste in their friends, and Blair's no exception. He's got a good head on his shoulders, and he's very interesting to talk with. He's not what I would have expected for someone who was obviously so close to Jimmy, but if it didn't bother them it wasn't my business. Yes, you're right, he sort of grows on you. I think he's a good influence on my son. Jimmy seems a lot more relaxed with him around, a lot more laid back.

I worried, though about whether he knew about Jimmy's disability. I didn't want Jimmy hurt again by being rejected because of it.

So, toward the end of that first lunch, when Jimmy was in the kitchen talking with Sally, I leaned toward Blair and said, "I didn't want to bring this up in front of my son, but did he tell you that he has problems with his senses sometimes?"

"Actually, that's how we met," he said. "I'm helping him with them."

Now, this was a puzzle because I didn't recall anything about Blair being a doctor, so I said, "I thought you said you were with the university? Are you in the medical school?"

"I'm in the doctoral program, but it's in anthropology. My field of study is Sentinels, people with heightened senses who protect others."

He started to explain about the other people he'd found in his studies, who worked as firefighters, soldiers and many other jobs and professions, and about how he had found ways to help Jimmy control his abilities. Apparently, Jimmy had inherited both my father's hearing problem and his mother's problem with touch, as well as a host of other things I'd never even imagined -- and there was Blair, talking about it all very calmly and explaining how he'd helped Jimmy learn to 'dial down' his senses so he could live a normal life.

I couldn't help wishing that someone like Blair had been around when I was a child. Maybe my father would have been able to come out of his room more often; I would've liked to get to know him better. He didn't get out and play much with me or my brother, unless we were very quiet, and it didn't happen very often. He was only able to run the factory while wearing earplugs, even from the executive suite. If he hadn't been a genius at business, he would never have been able to keep it going.

I guess my emotions showed on my face too much, because Blair broke off from what he was saying about how he helps my son and said, "You should be so proud of Jim. He's such a credit to you. What he has is a gift, and he uses it to help other people."

"I am proud of him, more than I can say," I said slowly. "I always told him that with his abilities he could be anything he wanted."

"Yes. That's what he's doing." Blair smiled at me. "He's using his enhanced senses to help him protect people and take care of them." His voice was very gentle. "He's doing exactly what he wants, and he's the best in the world at it."

I sat back in my chair, feeling as if the wind had been knocked out of me.

Maybe I hadn't been such a failure as a father after all. If something that had been such a crippling handicap a generation ago was now a gift, maybe my Jimmy could have the good life that his grandfather, and his mother, had missed.

Jimmy came in from the kitchen then with Sally, bringing the dessert. As soon as he was seated, I drew a breath and said, "You know, Jimmy, I don't think I ever told you about why my father built up Ellison Industries instead of going to war, did I?" He shook his head, looking a little puzzled. Blair leaned forward a little, paying attention to Jimmy's reaction and to me, waiting. "He didn't just have an deferment because the company had defense contracts. He had this hearing problem all the time I was growing up."

"He was 4-F?" Jimmy asked. "It happens, Dad. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"At least he had something valuable to contribute, with the company." Blair put in.

I told him, "He wasn't deaf, Jimmy. The doctors couldn't find anything wrong at all. But he could hear too much, all the time. He could only go down to the factory with double earplugs in each ear, and he'd come home with such headaches. If I was doing my chores, helping your grandmother in the kitchen and I dropped a dish in the sink, he heard it on the third floor." I paused and took a breath. "Just like you."

Well, Jimmy and Blair looked over at each other, and back at me, and both of them smiled. "I'd really like to hear about him, Dad," he said.

So, that's when we started talking again. It's not easy all the time with him; I didn't expect things would change that much. You know what he's like; you've seen more of him these past years than I have. But it's good.

You know, it's too bad you couldn't be in this game. How long do you have to keep your arm in a cast? Another three weeks? That's too bad. There's no substitute for hands-on experience and management. Well, yes, I suppose a police captain doesn't really have to be a hands-on administrator, but I think you're right to handle your department that way. It can't be easy with my son and Blair working for you; they're a couple of live wires....

Hey, Jimmy. That was a nice home run. Yours too, Blair. Keep that up, and the Fire Department's going to have to put a line item into their budget just for baseballs. And some nice base stealing there. Too bad Simon, here, had to sit this one out with that broken arm, but next year I bet he'll have you winning by more than three runs.


End file.
